Stronghold City Draft

Chapter 16

"Did you hear about Ezekiel moving out?" asked Arialia. "He moved to the chupacabra city. Sold his shop and everything." Aviary hissed. "Traitor." Arialia shook her head. "His closest friends were killed by the chupacabras. It hurt too much to stay. Even if he does live with the chupacabras, I strongly doubt he'd ever hurt a dragon.

Ezekiel sat atop the back of Bastion as he padded across the sand on all fours. The other chupacabras thought their friendship was strange, and neither Ezekiel nor Bastion could disagree. Ezekiel had told Bastion he used to be a chupacabra hunter, and Bastion found it very ironic that had he come across a younger Ezekiel, he would have become a rug. Bastion was surprisingly wise for a chupacabra. Ezekiel enjoyed his friendship. As they continued to pad through the desert, Ezekiel came across a horrible sight. A party of eight chupacabras were facing down a yellow dragon with brown stripes. The dragon roared and blasted fire at the chupacabras. Ezekiel noticed small chunks of glass in the sand where the flame had hit. One of the chupacabras' tail was on fire and it panicked. It rolled in the sand to put it out. Ezekiel watched with horror. "They're going to kill him." The dragon snarled and rose up on his hind legs, spreading his wings wide. With a swipe of his tail, he sent one of the chupacabras flying. It landed to the ground limply, its neck broken. The dragon prepared to take off into the air, but the seven remaining chupacabras all climbed onto his body. The large, heavy bodies of the animals, each weighing about 150 pounds at least weighed the dragon to the ground, making it unable for him to fly. One of the chupacabras handed the other some rope, and Ezekiel watched in horror as they begun to truss him up. "Hey, you. Get over here," called one of the chupacabras, gesturing to Bastion. "Bastion, we can't let this dragon die. He has a life. Family. Friends. A job." Bastion slowly padded over to the dragon. "We'll be traitors if we set the dragon free. We'll be exiled, maybe killed. Believe me, I don't want to kill this dragon." Ezekiel got an idea. "If we kill these chupacabras, there will be no witnesses. The dragon will be free and Anarchy will assume that they all were killed by the dragon." He felt Bastion shiver under him. "But they have lives too," he pointed out. "They're criminals. They're killing that dragon in cold blood. He didn't even do anything to provoke them. Those same chupacabras will kill other dragons too. They deserve to die." As Bastion watched the dragon struggle as the chupacabras bound him, he found that he couldn't disagree. The dragon was innocent. The only thing the dragon had done to the party of chupacabras was kill one in self-defense- and that was after they had begun to harass him.

Lizard watched the chupacabras bind the dragon in ropes from afar. It was one of the saddest, most horrible sights he could ever see. The dragon was huge and majestic. He was bigger than Lizard could ever imagine and his wings were as wide as the sky. And these chupacabras were typing him in ropes as he struggled. "Shrew! Those chupacabras are going to kill that dragon!" Shrew and Cat padded over. "We have to save the dragon." Lizard's friends watched the dragon struggle under his bounds. "Those chupacabras will kill us. They're clearly trained to fight. Otherwise, there's no way they'd be able to take that dragon down," Shrew noted. "I'm just going to talk to them. Not fight them." He padded over. Shrew hoped that the other chupacabras wouldn't attack the little eccentric chupacabra.

"Hey, how come you're tying the dragon up?" Lizard went up to one of the chupacabras. It looked at him in a very unfriendly way. "Get away, you little feral freak. We're busy killing this dragon," it snarled. "But what if the dragon doesn't want to be tied up? You should set him free." The chupacabra jumped down from the dragon's scaly side and closed in on Lizard, snarling. "If you do not get away from this dragon right this instant, I will rip you to shreds. We will not set this dragon free, do you understand." Lizard was suddenly scared. He began to back up. "Oh no," Shrew said to Cat. If the chupacabra did attack Lizard, Shrew and Cat couldn't save him. A kekkoriik and a cat couldn't take on a chupacabra, and if the chupacabra alerted the others, they'd be fighting six more.

Bastion noticed that one of the chupacabras was snarling at a peculiar creature, trying to scare it off. Upon closer inspection, the creature looked to be an extremely malnourished chupacabra pup with black fur. The attacking chupacabra looked like it was about to tear the pup to shreds. Bastion couldn't allow it to. "Get off my back and wait here. You wait until the other chupacabras are distracted, and then free the dragon," he told Ezekiel.

The chupacabra continued to walk towards Lizard, and Lizard continued to back up. "Go on. Get away, you ugly little ball of mange." Lizard began to whimper. And then, all of a sudden, a big brown blur rushed forwards and collide with the chupacabra. Another chupacabra, a big brown one had it pinned to the ground. It whimpered as the big one snarled. The brown one sunk its teeth into its opponent's throat and it went limp, eyes rolling back in its head. The brown chupacabra turned to Lizard. The poor pup began to loudly squeal and whimper. "I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Bastion and me and my friend are going to save the dragon." Bastion turned in the direction of the dragon. The other chupacabras were climbing off his back. Lizard darted in the direction of his friends and laid down on the ground, adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Bastion raked his claws across the face of one of the chupacabras. It whined loudly, now blind. Ezekiel watched from afar. He wished he had brought the rifle. That would make the job of killing the chupacabras so much easier. It looked like all the chupacabras were occupied with trying to attack Bastion. Which meant it was time to free the dragon. He walked over to the dragon. The dragon's big yellow-green eyes stared mournfully at him. "I'm going to free you," Ezekiel promised. Ezekiel was a very proper saurian, but he put his dignity beside to bite through the dragon's bounds with his sharp teeth. Meanwhile, the six chupacabras became too much for Bastion to take on. He turned around and ran. In time, Ezekiel had bitten through the last rope and the dragon was free. "Thank you," he said, standing tall and spreading his wings. "Can you please help that big brown chupacabra over there, being chased? He's my friend. He helped me free you." Ezekiel pointed to Bastion, who was running for dear life from his six attackers. The dragon nodded and flew over effortlessly. The last thing many of the chupacabras chasing Bastion saw was an enormous paw coming down to crush their backbone as they glanced up at the huge shape above them. Bastion stopped in fear when he saw the dragon, but the dragon just smiled at him, turned around, and flew back home. And Lizard observed it all.